


Snow in Venice

by patentpending



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst, Angst With A Bittersweet Ending, Art, Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Poetic, Sympathetic Deceit Sanders, inspired by a song
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-26
Updated: 2018-09-26
Packaged: 2019-07-17 15:32:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16098545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patentpending/pseuds/patentpending
Summary: Logan arches an eyebrow.  “You could have picked a better place if what you are after is snow. Snow in Venice is hardly a guarantee, and it never lasts for an extensive period.”“Nothing else is a guarantee.”  Virgil smirks. “Why should this be any different?”Logan and Virgil fall for each other, as slowly and calmly as the snows fall over Venice.





	Snow in Venice

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger Warnings:  
> \- MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH! If you want to ignore it and pretend that this is a beautiful love story where nothing bad happens, skip "... the name fades until it is but a memory." to the end.  
> \- Descriptions of depression and grief  
> \- Deceit is sympathetic in this, but he is a minor character  
> \- Very vague implied sexual content  
> \- Tiny bit of swearing
> 
> This story was inspired by the GORGEOUS cover of "Snow in Venice" by Thomas Sanders, which you can find here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cou7FCGekjY

They meet for the first time in an airport.  

 _Suited man in charcoal,_  Virgil thinks absently when he sees him.  He can imagine the elegant slope of his neck sketched out on paper, the inquisitive arch of his eyebrows delicately plotted out, the way his long fingers hold his book immortalized.  Not by him, of course; he has no skill, but something about the other makes him wish he did. The man would go in the middle of an exhibit, he decides, smaller sketches around him, but he would shine in the spotlight.

Virgil’s fingers drum against his armrest to the pounding bass of his music.  He is a dark smudge under the airport’s fluorescent lights - a mistake in graphite that couldn’t quite be erased, leaving a ghost of itself behind.  He would go in the corner of an exhibit, a mundane rest for the eyes between dazzling displays of light and color.

It’s late, the stars already awake and going through their routine dances outside the airport’s picture windows, and Virgil wishes the plane hadn’t been delayed so long.  His back aches and gives a long, satisfying series of snaps when he cracks it.

“You really shouldn’t do that, you know.”  The charcoal man has spoken, looking at him with curious hazel eyes hidden behind square glasses.

Virgil’s hackles raise.  “What are you, a doctor?”  He flips up his hoodie and curls up in his tiny chair, praying for the man to leave him alone before Virgil embarassess himself any further.

“An astronomer actually,” Charcoal corrects, holding up his book - Carl Sagan’s Cosmos - as if for evidence.

“Good for you,” Virgil says sarcastically, tapping up the volume on his headphones.

Charcoal does not seem to speak sarcasm.  He lights up, and Virgil reconsiders. Acrylics would be much better to capture the sudden sparkle in his eyes.  “It is actually! Astronomical phenomena is so fascinating, and I’m incredibly fortunate to get to go travel to study them!”  He begins to ramble, so quickly that Virgil's head spins with the way words fall like snowflakes in a blizzard, before suddenly Specs cuts himself off, flushing.  “Do forgive me, where are my manners?” He adjusts his glasses with one hand and holds out another, meaning forward across the aisle between them. “Logan Choi.”

Virgil blinks owlishly at the outstretched hand, cautiously uncurling himself.  No way anyone this nerdy could judge him. “Virgil,” he responds, taking it. It could just be his imagination, but his hand tingles where their skin touches.   _A juxtaposition in fifths,_ he thinks, the back of his mind admiring the way his dark skin shines against Logan’s.  “Virgil Sanders.”

Virgil finds himself drawn into a conversation, quips and laughter shared easily between them until the intercom over head crackles, letting them know that it's time to board the 12:40 flight to Venice.

That could have been it, had Virgil not found himself seated next to a rather familiar acrylic man on the plane.  Logan smiles when he sees Virgil, and Virgil feels something in his chest slot into place. He looks down briefly, wondering if his duffle bag has shifted, but there’s nothing to explain it.

“You travel rather lightly, don’t you?”  Logan asks, watching as Virgil slides the tattered bag into the overhead compartment.

“I suppose I do.”  Traveling light is a simple thing for someone whose heart has gone missing.  He is unencumbered by the weight of memories holding him down, tying him to objects and places and people.  Perhaps that’s why it was so easy for him to book a one-way ticket to Venice. He packed his life away in a battered duffle bag, no more than one by three feet, and marveled that his entirety could be compressed into such a small area, although it really shouldn’t come as such a surprise.  He never has amounted to much. “I’m not a sentimental person.”

“So,” Logan says as Virgil sits next to him, arms barely brushing.  “What brings you to Venice?”

“I’m moving there,” Virgil explains, sliding up the window blind.  “I’m an art curator, and I got a new job at the Peggy Guggenheim.”

Logan hums noncommittally, and Virgil darts a glance at him, lips turning up with amusement.  “You don’t know a thing about art, do you?”

“Not at all, no.”  Logan smiles sheepishly.

 _Bashful in Ink,_ Virgil thinks, and it is like a revelation.

“I’ve never understood art, honestly,” Logan continues before catching Virgil's eye, adjusting his own tie self-consciously.  “Might I ask how you knew?”

“Peggy Guggenheim is one of the biggest art museums in Venice.  If you were as big of a nerd as I am, you would have promptly flipped your lid, specs.”

Logan blinks.  “I don’t have a lid.”

It is a long flight from Miami to Venice, almost twelve hours, to be precise.  That’s plenty of time for them to talk, and talk they do. Words flow like sparkling wine between them, easily, smoothly, intoxicatingly.  Bubbles tickle Virgil’s stomach, and he finds a blush coming to his cheeks far too easily. He had ordered an in-flight coffee, but it grows cold, even the sweet pull of caffeine neglected for this strange new feeling.

He learns that Logan is traveling to Venice to study astronomical phenomena at a conservatory in the area, that he will be staying for four months, and that he has a love of Sherlock that rival’s Virgil’s love of My Chemical Romance.

They’ve almost landed when Logan asks the question Virgil has managed to skate around thus far.  “So, what prompted this move, if I may ask?”

Virgil shrugs because even he isn’t sure what prompted him to gather his life in a bag light enough to sling easily over his shoulder.  

“Snow,” he says, but is surprised to hear it.

“Snow?”  Logan repeats, an eyebrow arched sceptically.

“Not much snow in Florida,” Virgil explains, deciding to roll with it, “but I’ve always liked it.”  He is looking for something, and snow might as well be it.

The edge of Logan’s mouth flirts with amusement.  “You could have picked a better place if what you are after is snow. Snow in Venice is hardly a guarantee, and it never lasts for an extensive period.”

“Nothing else is a guarantee.”  Virgil smirks. “Why should this be any different?”

 

The plane lands, and it is snowing.  Virgil presses his face against the glass until his nose is almost squashed flat, eyes wide and enthralled.  Logan watches him with something Virgil would call fond if he didn’t know better.

“Well, it appears you’ve found your snow.”

Virgil pulls away from the window and smiles sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck.  “Guess I have.”

A soft beep sounds through the cabin.  They are free to disembark.

At the end of the boarding tunnel, they stand together for a moment, and Virgil’s anxieties creep back over him, slouching his shoulders, darkening his eyes, fidgeting with his hands.  It is different out here in the wide-open air than it was in the small, cozy space between two seats.

“Well,” he manages, swallowing down a lump in his throat.  “It was nice to meet you, Logan Choi.”

Logan considers him for a long moment before holding out his hand.  “Give me your phone.”

A jolt of adrenaline hits Virgil, but he has his phone out and thrusts at at Logan, hands shaking, before he can think it over too much.

Logan taps on the screen, then hands it back.  “Call me,” he says, more of an instruction than a suggestion.  “Dinner would be nice.”

He strolls off, suitcase bouncing along behind him, and Virgil is left to stare at his retreating figure.   _A hurricane in tempura._

 

Virgil finds his new car, his new apartment, his new furniture, his new job, his new coworkers, his new grocery store, and he settles into his new life.  All the while, his encounter with Logan buzzes at the back of his mind. At first, he didn’t want to call because it was too soon, and that would just be needy and desperate, right?  Then, every time his finger hovered over the call button, his heart started pounding, mind racing ahead. Maybe Logan had just felt sorry for him, or he had suffered from temporary insanity when talking to Virgil.  He was an astronomer, so he was probably a pretty busy guy. It would be terribly selfish of Virgil to call him now.

By then, it’s too late.  Two weeks have passed, and it’d just be weird for him to call now.  That doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t draft a million and one unsent texts.  That doesn’t mean he doesn’t keep finding himself daydreaming about slicked-back black hair turned soft and falling into sleepy eyes.   _Hazel in Conté._

He tricks himself into doing it, finally, three weeks later.  He hits call before he can think better of it, and, when his anxiety screams at him to _GET RID OF IT!_  he hurls the phone across the room, where it lands with a bounce on the coach.  He huddles up on the countertop, apprehensively eyeing it until _calling…_ switches over to a series of numbers. _One, two, three…_ a measure of connection weighed in seconds and minutes and hours.

“Hello?”  Logan sounds brisk, and Virgil might have stayed hunched up on the countertop, waiting for him to hang up, if not for what he said next.  “Virgil, is this you?”

Mouth suddenly dry, it takes him a moment to croak out a response.  “Yeah, it’s me, pocket protector. How’d you know?” He uncurls himself, slowly padding over to the phone.  His pulse calms. At least the worst of it is over.

“You’re the only one I’ve given out my new number to whose number I do not have in return.”  He almost sounds amused. “Likely because all of them are much more expeditious in concating me.”

Abort mission. Abort mission. The worst is not over. Logan hates him now.  Logan is a player who apparently gives out his number to a ton of people and probably has at least ten people calling him every day to beg for a date.  How could he not when he looks like that? Virgil is a fool.

Logan, the promiscuous casanova with a harem of people who are much more beautiful and eloquent than Virgil, continues.  “Granted, all of them are my coworkers, so I suppose I cannot adequately make conjectures about the population as a whole.”

Virgil manages a dry chuckle, uncurling himself to reach out and grab his phone.  “You’d be a terrible scientist if you did.”

“I suppose it’s a good thing you called then.”  Virgil can hear the smile in Logan’s voice, can see it in his mind.  “I’d hate for my professional reputation to be dragged through the metaphorical mud.”

“You are aware that all the slang you use is about a billion years old, right?”

“I find that hard to believe as humans are estimated to have only arrived on this planet six million years ago, and -”  Logan cuts himself off. When his voice returns, it is a tad sheepish. “Ah. Sarcasm.”

“My first language,” Virgil quips.  “It’s really no big deal though; I’m sure you could get the hang of slang if you wanted to.”

“I assure you, I only use the most… ‘lit’ slang.”

Virgil snorts.  “Uh-huh.”

“My vernacular is high key goat af.”

Virgil has to bury his head in his hands to keep from laughing.  “I can see.”

“My mastery of the English language is on fleek.”

“If I invite you to dinner tonight, will you stop?”

“Sounds gucci, fam.”

Outside, it is snowing.

 

Dinner, once the initial awkwardness wears off, goes well.  Surprisingly well, in fact. Virgil had almost managed to forget how easily Logan can draw him out.  He doesn’t realize how comfortable he is until he is flat-out snorting with laughter at some Doctor Who reference.  He sobers and smiles at Logan, soft and unsure, over his glass.

Logan smiles back - more with his eyes then lips - and gently knocks their knees together under the table.

Virgil can’t remember ever having this much fun on a date.

Eventually, however, the evening ends, bleeding away into the starry, snow-freckled night.  They walk off their meal along the side of the river, hands barely brushing before Logan takes his.

Virgil makes a soft sound in the back of his throat, mind immediately rushing forward at a million thoughts a minute, but Logan seems calm.  “Your hands are cold,” he comments, interlacing their fingers. “I’d hate for you to be uncomfortable after such a pleasant evening.”

Virgil’s heartbeat slowly levels out, only slightly faster than usual.

“Thanks,” he manages.

Logan clears his throat briskly, but the color in his cheeks is not due solely to the chill winding through the air.  “Of course. It’s only logical.”

 

They fall into each other after that, as slowly and calmly as the snows fall over Venice.  Their days are separate, but their nights are shared, dinners and walks and quiet evenings spent curled up in front of the crackling fireplace in Virgil's brick and stone apartment.

It’s an understood thing, an easy and happy routine.  They haven’t kissed yet, haven’t done more than held hands and hugged because, despite everything, Virgil is still 83% liquid anxiety, and he just… isn’t ready.

But Logan understands.  Logan doesn’t push. Logan holds his hand and smiles at him - the smiles that Virgil is learning have more to do with eyes than lips.  Logan listens to him ramble on about composition of paintings, the value of different mediums, and Logan races along behind him when Virgil sneaks them into the museum after-hours.

Virgil knows they wouldn’t really get into trouble if they were caught, but it’s fun to pretend, so he grabs Logan’s hand and draws him close, murmuring softly about light and shadow, color and monochrome, the feeling in a twisted sculpture, the calm of his favorite pieces.  Logan smells like lavender and dark chocolate, and, more than once, Virgil loses track of his thoughts when the astronomer stands so near.

Logan responds in kind, taking him late one night to the observatory he is stationed at and showing off the night sky as if he owns it.  He might as well; he knows it like no other. He pulls Virgil against him, arm wrapped around his waist as they lay down and stare up at the heavens, and he tells Virgil a story.

It is a long story, a rambling once.  It is the story of humanity and the universe and the threads that bind the two much more closely than anyone would suspect.  It is a story of light and darkness and things that stay long, long, long after they disappear.

“Some of the stars we see are already gone,” he explains.  “Their light, however, takes such an extensive time to reach our planet that we can still see them.”

“Then how do you know?”  Virgil asks, a finger lazily trailing a line across Logan's chest.

Logan chuckles.  Virgil cannot see this laugh in the darkness, but he hears it, feels it, knows the way it rumbles.  “You do not get to know,” he confesses, reaching down to tangle Virgil’s wandering fingers with his own.  “We simply observe and learn and savor.”

“Isn’t that strange?”  Virgil squints up at the sky, trying to discern the truth from the lie.  “You could just be staring at a sky of dead things.”

“I suppose you could think of it like that,” Logan concedes.  “I, however, chose to marvel at the fact that, regardless of if they are there are not, they still shine.  For all intents and purposes they still are there, in whatever manner.”

His eyes are shining with a smile, and his lips curl ever so slightly.  “It’s amazing.”

Virgil is helpless to do anything but draw their faces together to taste that smile.

 

Four months pass, and Logan boards a plane.  

Virgil hadn't managed to see him off at the airport, but he was there in the morning before the astronomer's departure.  They had shared a bed that night, fully dressed yet curled against each other in sleep, seeking warmth. Virgil had woken him with a drowsy kiss, murmuring that he had a plane to catch.

Virgil left to work, and Logan left to Miami.

Logan worries after him, but Virgil is far from alone.  He makes friends in Venice, despite his best efforts. Patton Hart waltzes in, bakes him some welcome-to-the-building cookies, and promptly adopts him as his son. Roman Márquez, an artist at one of the exhibits Virgil curates, screeches maniacally when they see Virgil's Disney t-shirt.  Deceit, who refuses to give anyone his real name, tries to pick Virgil's pocket and promptly gets punched in the face. It's a bonding experience for them both.

He and Logan skype nightly, sometimes talking, sometimes simply turning the camera on and going about their business, content with the other’s silent presence.

Virgil realizes it one day when Roman is outside waiting for him after work, a brown bag of something that smells _delicious_ clutched in their arms.  

“Hey there, your highness.”  Virgil quirks the corner of his mouth playfully.  “Is that for me? You shouldn’t have.”

Roman snorts.  “You wish, Salvador Dull-i.  This is for Patton. You just so happen to be invited along to eat it with us.”  They flounce off towards Virgil and Patton’s apartment building, but not before making sure the curator has fallen into step beside them.

They chat casually on their way over, quips and sly insults mixed in with anecdotes about their days.

Virgil thinks he sees Deceit lurking around, but the conman is flighty at best.  He has an annoying habit of only turning up when things get interesting. This often results in incidents that Virgil swears never to speak of again and Roman fondly recounts at every given opportunity.

Patton grins when they arrive, dragging the two of them inside and excitedly chattering about nothing significant.  They eat off of paper plates while sitting cross-legged on the carpet, a winding conversation that none of them will be able to quite remember later drifting above head.  They will, however, remember the glow that settled in each of their chests.

He skypes Logan that night, describing his day with a soft smile and listening with interest to the astronomer’s.

It is only after this, all of this, this perfect normalcy that he realizes what that glow in his chest is.   _Family in pastels._

_Happiness right here._

 

The internet has gone out, and Virgil is doing his best not to panic.  While normally this would be nothing more than the agony of being seperated from Tumblr, he _needs_ it right now.

Logan is supposed to skype him any minute.

He stares up at the clock frantically before his gaze darts outside to the swirling snow storm pressing down on the city.  It’s already taken his internet, his landline, and his warmth. Now it’s going to take Logan too?

Absolutely not.

He grabs his hoodie and burrows into it, flinging on an overcoat and fumbling for a scarf as he tries to tug on his boots.  He topels over, but manages to get his shoes tied, so he counts it as a win. He stumbles out of the door, down the hallway, and into the whipping winds.

_White Paint on a Blank Canvas_

There’s a payphone down the street; the coins in his pocket clink brightly against each other in time with his strides.  He glances at his watch and blanches, picking up the pace.

It is not that he is afraid of what will happen if he doesn't call Logan.  He trusts Logan, perhaps more than he has ever trusted anyone before. He just wants this.  The missing aches in his bones, ameliorated when they speak to each other. It is not that he _needs_ to call Logan, it is simply that he _wants_ to, more than almost anything else.

The soft crunching of his boots through the snow comes to a halt as he finally arrives at the payphone.  He dials long-distance with frozen fingers, tapping out double-oh-one and number he knows by heart.

He presses the phone into the nook between his neck and shoulder, sliding his hands back into his pockets and huddling them into fists.  The line rings _once… twice… three_ times before it finally clicks over, and the voice Virgil dreams about says hello.

“Hi,” Virgil says in return, a small smile dancing across his face.  “Yeah, sorry, the internet went out… I’m fine, don’t worry. How are you?”  He looks up into the swirling gray skies and huffs out a laugh at Logan’s next question.  “Yeah, it’s still snowing here.”

They talk until Virgil runs out of change.

 

Logan comes back three months of late-night skype calls later.

Virgil stands at the exit to the airport, a giant sign reading **Nerd** in his hands.

Logan snorts when he sees it, the edge of his lips quirking in amusement.  “I take it you’re my escort then?”

Virgil smirks.  “You’re the one claiming the title. I just held it up for you.”

“Truly a gentleman,” Logan drawls, leaning in to kiss him.

“Only the best for the lord of Sherlock trivia,” Virgil quips, closing the gap.

They grab a quick lunch together before they both have to rush off to work, pesky things like adultery and responsibility getting in the way.

Virgil is impatient, stealing glances at the clock every half hour to see that only five seconds have passed.  He is distracted, misplacing exhibits and forgetting what he is about to say halfway through a sentence. A low thrum of excitement beats in time with his heart.

 _Anticipation in acrylics,_ he thinks sheepishly as he realizes he hasn't registered a single thing anyone has said in the last five minutes.

Eventually, his bosses realize that Virgil is going to be a disaster no matter what happens today, and they wave him off, telling him to come back refreshed tomorrow.  Normally he would slink home, guilt twinging inside his chest, but not today.

He fusses over his hair, running over it with the flat iron a million times - although it’ll just shrink and grow curly again if it ends up snowing.  He throws out half of the contents of his closet onto his bed before shoving them all back in and wearing whatever he does normally.

He leaves to pick Logan up from the observatory an hour early.  Virgil couldn’t stand to wait any longer.

Luckily, he is only outside for five minutes before the double doors swing open, revealing his acrylic man.

Logan smiles, shining in his deep hazel eyes, when he sees the other.  “Early, aren’t you?”

“Unlike you,” Virgil fires back sarcastically, falling into step beside him, “who waited all the way until the designated time.”

“A true gentleman is always punctual.”  Logan links their hands together, squeezing softly.  “Otherwise where would we be?”

“Somewhere dreadful, I’m sure,” Virgil deadpans.

Logan laughs - _Light in Tempura._

They wander around together, voices and silence equally comfortable as they explore this, their city.  They have a simple dinner from a local bakery, feeding each other bites of freshly baked bread, soft cheeses, and grapes.

They walk along the bank of the river, just as they had all of those months ago.  Unlike last time, their hands are linked from the beginning. A sudden flurry of movement grabs their attention, and they stop, looking up.

It has begun to snow.

Logan laughs in delight, eyes wide and enchanted.  He tilts his head up and lifts his palms, as if he can capture nature in his hands.  “I do believe I understand your fascination.” Joy touches the edges of his mouth. “I missed this.”

Virgil looks at him and feels something in his chest slot into place.  He had felt it on the plane all that time ago, but it is so much stronger now.

Then, he had told Logan that was easy to travel light, that someone with a missing heart doesn’t need much, but looking at Logan, he realizes that he’s found it.

 _A beating heart in watercolors,_ he thinks, looking at Logan’s hands, raised towards the sky.

“Is your hotel far?”  he asks, taking the tiniest of steps closer.

“Eight blocks that way.”  Logan gestures with a tilt of his head, returning his gaze to Virgil, and Virgil is so mesmerized by the display of moonlight and snow in his hair _(a symphony of light and shadow in oils)_ that he doesn’t realize the astronomer sounded disappointed for a moment.

A small smile quirks at the corner of his lips.  He reaches out and takes Logan’s hand. If he had done it to anyone else, it would’ve been in a sudden rush of recklessness, a momentary lapse of judgement he would later berate himself over.  Not with Logan.

Logan makes him want to be brave.

“My place is closer,” he says.  They stand there for a moment, bathed in the moonlight and the snows of Venice, warming where they are pressed together.  He watches as Logan’s eyes widen, the softest ‘oh’ escaping his lips as he realizes Virgil’s intent.

Then he leans forward and kisses him.

 

The morning after, he finds Logan in the bathroom, examining the patchwork of kisses left behind on his neck, his collarbone, his chest.

_Crushed violet on parchment in the morning light._

“They suit you.”  Virgil’s voice is more gravely than usual, and he relishes the way it makes the hairs on Logan’s arms stand at attention, his skin coming alive at Virgil’s command.

 _“You_ would think so, yes,”  Logan snarks, catching his eye in the mirror.

Virgil hums, standing behind Logan and wrapping an arm around his waist.  “Purple has always been my favorite color.”

Logan scoffs even as he presses against him, eyes darkening as Virgil sucks and bites at the side of his neck, right where Logan can see.

“Look at how gorgeous you are,” he sighs, kissing his way down the slope of the astronomer's shoulder.

He’s a masterpiece, more breathtaking than any painting Virgil has ever seen.  He deserves to be immortalized, bronzed, placed upon a canvas for all to see. It seems heartbreakingly unfair that anyone could be deprived of such beauty.

Logan gasps as Virgil bites down in just the right spot, eyes fluttering closed in bliss, but just as soon flickering back open, unwilling to miss the show.  “And you say you’re not an artist.” His voice is almost as gravely as Virgil’s, control slipping away as he melts into the curator’s embrace.

Their eyes meet in the mirror as Virgil slows his pace, peppering kisses up the line of Logan’s neck, ending in a soft peck right behind Logan’s ear.  “I love you,” he murmurs into it.

Logan stiffens, and Virgil realizes with a jolt of panic that it’s the first time either of them have said it.  

 _Hysteria in watercolors,_ he thinks, jerking back as apologies roll of his tongue at a million miles a minute.

“Virgil” - Logan turns and holds out a placating hand, but it is trembling - “Virgil, please. You need to breathe.”

Virgil shakes his head, voice thick and rough with panic.  “I’m so sorry; I shouldn’t have!”

His aggravation spreads to Logan, who is running his hands through his thick hair, eyes creased in frustration.  “Virgil, this is all wrong.”

Virgil flinches back, apologies dying on his lips.  “I know. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have-”

“No, not” - Logan waves him off - “not that. I’m pleased with that. I love you, too. I merely intended to tell you later today. I consulted with Roman, and they informed me that the best way to properly -”

He is still talking, but Virgil can’t hear him past the roaring in his ears.   _I love you, too._  He said it.  Logan said it.

“-I had intended to tell of you of it and then my transferal in a grand… romantic gesture, I suppose, although I shudder to refer to it as such-”

Virgil tunes back in just in time to catch the tail end of Logan’s soliloquy.  “You do?” His voice is no more than a whisper, so he licks his lips and tries again.  “You… you love me?”

Logan frowns.  “Of course I do.  You make me happier than I’ve been in a long time.  You’re intelligent, and clever, and I greatly enjoy our debates. My time is so often consumed by the heavens, but you make me realize that life down here can be just as… incredible.”

Virgil wraps his arms around Logan, pulling him as tight as he can - just to be sure he’s real.  “Me too,” he says, “I love you, too.”

To that, Logan can do nothing but hug him back.

“It was my intent to tell you tonight, after I told you that I’m being transferred to Rome for the next few months.”

They’re both silent for a moment.

“You know,” Virgil says eventually, chewing on his bottom lip, “I’m sure the National Roman Museum wouldn’t mind a guest curator, just for a few weeks.”

Logan’s eyes light up.  “Do you think?”

Virgil shrugs, but that smile is contagious.  “I can try.”

 

For a time, they're engaged in what seems like an epic trip across the globe.  Wherever Logan goes, Virgil finds a way to follow, if just for a time. They see each other in London, in Paris, Berlin, and Rome, stealing from time the moments they can.  Virgil gets to lie beside Logan as they see the lights on the Eiffel Tower wink themselves awake. Logan holds Virgil’s hand like a lifeline as the London Eye takes them higher and higher into the sky.  They rock against each other slowly, fingers wandering and mouths gasping as the German sunrise stains their bare skin gold. Logan takes about a million pictures of Virgil by the colosseum, claiming they’re for posterity each time Virgil protests.

“How?”  Virgil demands after his eleventh failed attempt to avoid the camera’s gaze.

Logan arches an unimpressed eyebrow.  “You tell me, Mr. Curator. Aren’t you the one who always espouses the ideal that beauty should be shared?”

In the next picture, Virgil’s face is bright red.

They hoard those weeks spent together, stretches of love and contentment.

But their favorite moments, by far, are those spent in that brick-and-stone fireplace when it's snowing in Venice.

For a time, they can curl against each other in the place they both call home.

For a time, their life is filled with the mundane and the ordinary, if love can ever be called such a thing.

 

They meet for the last time in an airport.

“I’ll see you soon,” Logan promises, kissing Virgil.  “It will be just three weeks until I have all of my affairs in order and may return.”

Virgil returns it, humming with contentment.  “You better call me as soon as you land, specs.”

“First thing,” he pledges, taking his hand and squeezing it tight.  “I love you.”

“I love you too, Lo.”

The intercom above them crackles with static, beckoning Logan away, away from the snows of Venice, away from that stone apartment with the crackling fire, away from Virgil’s star-shine eyes and curling lips.

Logan follows its call, trundling down the boarding ramp with his back suitcase grimly rolling alongside.  He looks back every few steps, trying to capture another memory to hold with him through the gray skies.

Virgil is looking back each time, trying to capture another memory to keep him warm.

Logan rounds a corner, and he is gone.

Virgil stands at the picture windows that arch gracefully above his head, offering him a view of the plane’s blinking lights as it trudges through the melting snow, faster and faster and faster until it soars.  Virgil stands at the picture windows as, beyond them, the snow turns to rain. It washes away the lights as they recede farther and farther into the dark night.

_Grayscale heart in graphite._

A cloud of Virgil’s breath forms on the window, and he trails a finger through it.  The curve of a smile. A fall, twirling back up again until it melds into a circle. A hollow space with a dip beneath.  The edge of a sunrise. The path of fingers across skin.

_Logan_

Virgil walks away when the plane fades from view, and, without him, the name fades until it is but a memory.

 

The plane goes down over the Atlantic.  Engine failure. There are no survivors.

 

The person on the other end of the line has long since hung up, and static hisses through the earpiece, trickling like a viscous liquid into Virgil’s head.  He can't move. He can't bring himself to take the phone from his ear. The static buzzes.

They were wrong.  They had to be. It was a different plane, a different Logan, a different Virgil who was having his world ripped apart at its seams.

His head fills with static until his brain is swimming in it.

He moves his hand down, removing the phone, but the static remains, the sound and the fury of the silence in which he finds himself.

It roars.

 

Deceit finds out first somehow; he immediately arrives on Virgil's doorstep.  Virgil doesn't answer the persistent knocks, so Deceit picks the lock, letting himself in.  Virgil can't find the energy to make him leave.

He is huddled over a mug of tea that has long-since grown cold, staring blindly with red-rimmed eyes that have long-since run out of tears.  He looks up when Deceit stands at his side, and the conman wordlessly gathers him into his arms.

“Tell me it's going to be okay,” Virgil says, discovering that, yes, he still has tears left.

The conman swallows, holding Virgil even tighter.  “It's going to be okay,” Deceit says. “Everything's going to be okay.”

 

Virgil doesn't go to the funeral, can't find it in himself to meet Logan's family for the first time like this.  He mourns enough by himself anyway.

He spends days lying in his bed, sleep and wake melding into the same haze of darkness.  He doesn't like to sleep much. He always wakes up to find his hand reaching out for someone who is no longer there.

He doesn't know how long it has been when Patton barges into his room.

“Get up,” he says.

Virgil gazes at him blankly, eyes dull.  “Why?”

 _What's the point?_ He wants to demand.  Why should he? Why does he have to do anything at all now?

But he's far too tired, an invisible force pulling down on his eyes, his shoulders, his mouth, until he's left with no choice but to succumb, to fall down, down, down.

He expects Patton to sit down on the bed next to him, to draw him to his chest, so close that Virgil can feel the stiffness of his binder, and murmur soothing, empty words.  Something about how Logan would’ve wanted him to go on, that Logan would've wanted him to be happy, to live his life.

Instead, Patton marches over to his wardrobe, pulls out slacks and a purple button-up, and throws them at Virgil, smacking him in his face.   “Because you love your job,” Patton responds, “and you’ll get fired if you don’t do it for long enough.”

Virgil sputters, the impact enough to momentarily knock the dredges of his exhaustion to the side.  “Patton, what the hell?”

“I made soup for you,” Patton ignores him, sweeping into the other room as the smell of chicken broth wafts past him.  “Come eat it, or it’ll get cold.”

Well, that’s as good of a reason to get up as any.

 

He drags himself back to work where his coworkers don't know what happened.  Straightening paintings, arranging galleries, picking out new pieces, dealing with high-strung artists (namely Roman) - everything there is the same as before.

It's so normal, so same, that sometimes he finds himself forgetting.

A patron spills champagne all over some important art critic, and he immediately kicks up a hissy fit.  Virgil stifles his laughter and immediately starts figuring out how he'll recount the incident to Logan later.

He goes to the store and instinctively throws in a box of that fancy mint tea Logan likes for he next time he visits.

He flips open his laptop and logs into Skype.  He has Logan's user halfway typed in before he remembers.

Everytime, he remembers.

His laughter dies and he goes to get the critic something to clean himself off with.

He freezes in the middle of the grocery store, swallowing back a knot in his throat, and slowly puts the box back.

He closes his laptop with a _click,_ and he tries to sleep.

He wakes up in the morning, expecting to see Logan's head lying on the other pillow, hair rumpled and face slack with sleep.  Instead the bed is too cold, too large, too empty.

He buys a twin bed.

 

He starts seeing a therapist.  Besides the general anxiety, extreme grief, and regular panic attacks, he has cause to believe he’s going mad.  For some unfathomable reason… he has the urge to paint.

Absolutely insane.

Dr. Emile Picani urges him to follow this instinct, to express himself, but he just grumbles and hunches his shoulders.  He has no talent for art. Paint brushes feel foreign in his hands, stiff and uncomfortable. Charcoal breaks too easily, no comfortable match for a fragile man such as himself.  Graphite bites him when he tries to use it, gnashing calluses into his skin. Virgil arranges art. He, himself, is not an artist.

But for some reason, when he finds himself passing a cheep children's set of acrylics at the grocery store, he picks them up.

He stares at them for a long time that night, after the bread and the lettuce have been put away.  “He looked like he was made of you,” he informs them.

The acrylics appear unimpressed.

“He shone with color. Everything about him was just so _bright_ and _alive._ ” A wry smile quirks the corners of Virgil’s lips.  “I thought he was charcoal when I first met him, but he could never be monochromatic.”  

The paints sit impassively, and he wants nothing more than a reaction, to scream and howl and rage out the static that fills his head, to make the very rocks of this building weep with him.  His voice fills with heat.

“I followed him everywhere. To London and Paris and Berlin and Rome, but he just had to go and one-up me.”  Virgil laughs bitterly. “He just had to go where I can’t follow.”

His hands clench, and he is chewing on his bottom lip, so sharply that he tastes blood.  He swallows, grimacing, and feels the edge of his anger fade.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.  I’m not mad at him. I’m just…” His jaw clenches.  “I don’t understand. I don’t get why he had to leave.  He was here, and he was so alive and so beautiful, and he was everything I ever wanted, and now…” Heat pricks at his eyes.   “He’s not here.”

Virgil realizes he is crying, pouring his heart out to a set of children's paints.  “I guess that's not really important is it?” he whispers hoarsely, wiping roughly at his face.  “He gave my world color, and now he's gone.” He exhales roughly. “You were just a waste of money. It's not like I'm going to use you. What would I even paint on?”

He has no canvases, no easel.  He has paintbrushes, true, but they’re the cheap, plastic ones that came with the paints.  He’s just being an idiot.

He shakes away the static as best he can and drudges towards his bed.  It’s late, and he needs to change the sheets.

It is as Virgil is grabbing fresh linens that he notices the old, queen mattress sheets.

They’re too big for the twin bed - useless now.  Virgil looks at them and sighs, exasperated with himself.

“Really, Virgil? We’re going to do this?”

He finds himself spreading the sheet over the kitchen table.  Guess he is.

He pops open the dark blue paint and globs it on the paintbrush.  Awkwardly, he drags the bristles across the cloth in a line that ends up about as straight as he is.  The paintbrush feels clunky in his hand, too hard and too stiff.

He adds several more lines - red and blue and yellow - wondering when that jolt of divine artistic inspiration is supposed to hit him.  He grimaces at his work - de stijl-esque, if it must be classified.

Vaguely, he remembers a time all five of them had managed to meet up - he and Logan and Patton and Roman and even Deceit.  They had wandered around the art gallery, Roman proudly pointing out their pieces, Logan and Patton listening to Virgil’s informal tour, and Deceit eyeing the paintings and the security cameras in turn.

“And this one” - Virgil had said, pointing to a blocky canvas, taken over by blocks of blue and lines of red - “we just got in last week.”

“Oh!” Logan had perked up, pleased to know something.  “It’s influenced by the de stijl movement, is it not?”

“Well, it is de-style nowadays,” Patton had joked.

“Virgil, I don’t like your friends.”

“Suck it up, buttercup.”

“My name is Logan. You should be aware of this, as you were just calling it last ni-”

“Hey, Patton, let’s look at this painting right over there that is far, far away from Logan.”

A tiny smile dares to quirk his lips before the static creeps back in, pushing it away.

Virgil has lived his life in art.  He sees paintings in the world inside and around him.  Everything, every person, thing, feeling, he has ever seen, experienced, felt, has made itself known to him - through mediums and composition and title.  To Virgil, the world has always been a gallery he can wander through.

It is different now.

He cannot name the static in his head.

He pushes the paints away, watching dispassionately as they spill, covering the shaking lines.  Good.

Virgil crawls into his empty bed and shuts his eyes against the white noise of a suffocating silence.

 

Roman is a bull in a china cabinet when they try to comfort Virgil, and Virgil loves them for it.

“Oh shit he’s dead?!”  They had exclaimed upon hearing it for the first time before blanching and delivering a series of increasingly grandiose apologies to Virgil while Patton hissed ten types of furious reproaches.

Somewhere between Roman promising Virgil their firstborn and Roman offering the entire continent of Australia in recompience, Virgil decided to take pity on them.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” he said tersely, “he’s dead.”

Roman’s seemingly endless flow of words dried up, and their mouth flopped open and closed like that of a fish or a few moments.  “Well,” they eventually managed, “that sucks.”

It was enough to startle a laugh out of Virgil.  “Yeah. It does.”

Roman shuffled awkwardly.  “Wanna… talk about it?”

“With you?”  Virgil snorted.  “I’d sooner sell all of my eyeshadow and burn my MCR tees.”

Roman squawked indignantly.  “I would make an excellent confidant, I assure you!”  They struck a dramatic pose, as if their ability to throw up their hands at a perfect ninety degree angle somehow related to their emotional proasis.

Virgil just shook his head, snickering.  “You’re a hot mess, aren’t you?”

Roman cooed.  “Aw, you think I’m hot.”

They had not managed to get any more delicate in the time since then.

“Wake up, loser!”  Roman barges into Virgil’s room and makes a beeline for his closet, rummaging through the brilliant variety of black, purple, and more black.

“What grievous sin did I commit in a past life to deserve you?”  Virgil groans, sitting up and rubbing sleep from his eyes.

“Grievous? Calculator watch taught you all the Scrabble words you could ever need, I see.”  Roman squints at a purple tank top before throwing it into an increasingly large pile that Virgil is going to have to clean up later.

Virgil expects a sharp pain, but, instead, a small smile quirks the corner of his mouth.  “Yeah. He did.” His bleary eyes focus, and he sees Roman pulling out his tattered swim trunks.  “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Seriously reconsidering our friendship after seeing the state of your wardrobe, Gerard Way-to-dress-the-part.”  Roman grimaces at the seventh pair of black skinny jeans. “Have you ever heard of a little thing called variety? It’s the middle of the summer, and all you have is black!”

“It matches my skin and my soul,” Virgil intones darkly.

Roman rolls their eyes.  “Come on, Patton’s waiting.”  They throw Virgil his swim trunks and a thin purple t-shirt.

“You going to tell me what’s happening?”  Virgil asks as Roman breezes out.

“It’s summer, Charlie Frown.”  They glance over their shoulder and grin.  “We’re going to the beach!”

 

 _Eternity in gray,_ Virgil thinks as he stares out over the sparkling waters.

“Well, Piglet and Pooh,” Roman sighs, “I was counting on it being nicer.”

It is still early, and they are alone in watching the tender, bruised purple of the sky fade into the softest heather gray.  Distant caws of hungry seabirds echo across the fine sands, shining softly in the misty light. The waters, deep blue by the shore and drifting into gray until they meld seamlessly with the horizon, lap steadily at their feet, curling Virgil's toes with the unexpected pleasure.  The air is heavy with brine, draping over him like a thick velvet blanket as he breathes in deeply the smell of salt.

Virgil shakes his head, the world a better place for the soft smile on his lips.  “It's beautiful.” Gazing out at the place where the sky and sea join, he steps forward - one, then another, then he is running, charging the sea as if he could meld into that gray sky and join the birds crying their echoing songs above.

Patton pads up towards Roman as Virgil, through sparkling eyes, watches the birds swoop overhead.  “Why do you keep playing dumb?” He murmurs, “you have more charm than anyone I know. You could do this whole comfort thing a million times better.”

Roman shrugs and flashes a grin at Virgil when he turns back around to wave them over. Roman waves back, eyes soft.  “He needs something to laugh at right now.” They turn to Patton and smile, bittersweet. “It might as well be me.”

Patton looks up at them and feels something in his chest slot into place.  “Oh.”

“What’s the hold-up, people?”  Virgil calls, clouds of sand kicked up in his wake.  “I thought we were going to make Roman into a merperson!”

Roman guaffs their boisterous laugh.  “Excuse you, Captain Jack Sorrow, I’m already a majestic sea creature!”

“You mean the blobfish? Yeah, I see the resemblance.”  Virgil smirks, eyes dancing.

Roman’s lips purse.  “Remember that you asked for this.”

Virgil’s eyes widen, and he takes off, sprinting across the beach as Roman, howling with laughter, pursues.

“You wish you could get me, Your Highness!”  Virgil teases. “You’re just a -”

Roman tackles him, and they tumble over each other in the sand, soft clouds flying away from them.  Patton rushes over, but they’ve separated, laying side-by-side on the sands.

Virgil is laughing.

 

“Virgil! It’s nice to see you again. Have you been tried establishing any of those rituals we talked about last session?”

“Hey, Doc. Yeah, I did, but they all just feel… kinda dumb.”

“How Scooby Dooby Do you mean?”

“I felt weird going to his favorite places, and every time I tried to tell him good night, I couldn’t sleep. I… I just kept wishing I would hear it back.”

“Well, that’s alright.  We just need to find the private mourning rituals that are right for you. Let’s see if we can Bill de-Cyper why some of these didn’t work.”

A snarl. _“Why?”_

“Virgil, are you feeling alright there?”

“I wouldn’t be paying you to mess with my head if I was.”

“You seem to be particularly agitated. Is there any particular reason?”

“Because nothing’s fucking working! I came to try to feel better, to get this damn static out of my head, but I still feel it all the time! I still think of him every single day, and I… sometimes it just feels like I'm drowning under it all. I'm trapped in this, and I'm never going to be able to escape.”

“Virgil, I understand where you’re coming from, but you need to understand that there is no easy fix. Grieving is a process, and you need to try to-”

“I am trying.  I’m trying all the damn time, but it’s just so hard.  If I hadn’t… If I hadn’t kept asking him to stay, if I hadn’t asked him to be in Venice, he never would’ve gotten on that plane.  He’d still be here.”

“What are you saying?”

“It’s my fault!  If he and I had never fallen for each other or if he had gotten on an earlier plane or I hadn't asked him to ask for a permanent transfer to Venice… if I hadn't been so selfish, he could still be here.”

“Let me ask you this, Virgil, do you regret any part of your relationship with Logan?”

“No.”

“Do you wish you had never met him?”

“No!”

“Then why are you torturing yourself with hypotheticals? If Garnet from Steven Universe used her future vision to try to counteract every negative future, she'd never be able to enjoy the present with Steven and the other Crystal Gems. There's dwelling over something that _could_ be. Do you understand?”

“Yeah. I understand none of your cartoon references, but I get the gist.”

“It’s not your fault, Virgil.”

“... Thanks, doc.”

 

Virgil tries again.  He’s pulled back out the bed sheets, for no reason other than he doesn’t feel like investing in actual canvas, and they are stretched across the table, intimidating in their blankness.

He picks up the paintbrush again and tries to visualize… something.  His mind settles on a pair of hazel eyes, and he huffs out an uncertain breath as he slides the brush over cloth.  Crooked. Sloppy.

He dabs on more paint and keeps going, but still, it is nothing like the image of hazel in his head.  Tension builds in his shoulders, and a headache threatens the inside of his skull. His grip on the paintbrush tightens until he is sure it will snap under his grasp.

Actually, that's not a bad idea.

Virgil hurls the paintbrush at the far wall with all of his strength; the sharp crack is far more satisfying than it should be.

Honestly, screw paintbrushes.

He plunges his fingers in the open acrylics, smearing them over the makeshift canvas in the aftermath of his sudden mania.  His uninhibited hands skate smoothly, fingers adding a lift here, a twirl here, a gradient there. Streaks of color adorn his arms; splatters cup his cheek.  He can see them before him, those hazel, hazel eyes. He knows them like no other. He knows how they look clouded with anger or alight with excitement. He knows them dark with lust and soft with affection.  He's seen them sparkling with joy and dull with sorrow. He knows them.

He knows Logan.

He pauses for a moment and realizes he's done.  Virgil takes a step back and considers, mildly surprised.

Oh.

Well that… that's not as bad.

 

Virgil shows the painting to Dr. Picani, and truthfully reports that he feels… lighter somehow.  His heart hurts and his limbs are heavy and his throat threatens to crush itself under the weight of his sorrow, but his mind is just the slightest bit clearer.

Don’t get him wrong, the painting is trash, but it was… cathartic.

Picani seems pleased, and asks if he can show the painting to Thomas, a friend of his.

Apparently, Thomas is an art auctioneer.

Virgil's first painting sells for almost twenty thousand dollars.

When he finds out, Virgil promptly hangs up the phone, curls up into a ball, and hyperventilates.  There is no way that _he, Virgil Sanders,_ has any talent.  He curates art, he arranges it all nice and neatly then steps back to let others admire what people who are _definitely not him_ do.  Virgil is not an artist.  He has never been an artist.

The sheer number of zeros in his bank account beg to differ.

Virgil buys another set of acrylics, and he begins to paint.

His fingers smear paints over canvas after canvas, a mania he cannot escape.  He paints a man of acrylic and a smudge of graphite under fluorescents while the stars perform their dances outside.  He paints dark and tawny fingers linked together for the first time. He paints them again - the shift from a handshake to a hold, a history in the press of two palms.  He paints someone more hurricane than man. He paints hair, normally slicked-back, but now soft and falling into sleepy eyes.

He feels himself going into the paintings, his fingers the only things he trusts to tell this story.  He looks at them before him, and he feels a bit lighter.

They sell for more and more, but he does not keep most of the money.  A local university opens the Logan Choi library, complete with stacks upon stacks of books on astronomy.  

He paints lavender on parchment, bodies twisted together in the morning light.  That one he refuses to sell.

He grows closer to his friends, smiling as Patton and Roman fall in love, laughing at Deceit’s misadventures and vowing to one day discover his name, accepting their silent company on those days when his head feels like it’s far too full of static.  He paints. He works.

He lives.

 

Virgil looks outside, and is confronted with a sight he hasn’t seen in far too long.  A small smile quirks at the edges of his lips, and he stands up, placing a bookmark on page 241 of Carl Sagan’s _Cosmos._

He drags his easel out onto the balcony, listening to the sound of the crackling fireplace behind him, hearing the ringing of a far-off telephone, smelling a hint of lavender and dark chocolate.  

He picks up a tube of white paint and begins to paint the snows of Venice.

**Author's Note:**

> WOO! It's finally out! I had this idea a million years ago, but it just kept growing and growing and growing until this fic was before me.  
> Also, it's now just A Thing for me to make the sides as diverse as possible because heck society. In this work, we feature Korean Logan, Black Virgil, Trans Patton, and Latinx Roman, our nonbinary ruler.
> 
> Thank you for reading, and so much love goes out to those who leave kudos, bookmark, or comment!
> 
> and by the way ROAST ME IF YOU SEE A TYPO


End file.
